Name | Penelope (1867) | Explanation | |
Type | Central battery ironclad corvette | ||
Launched | 18 June 1867 | ||
Hull | Composite | ||
Propulsion | Screw | ||
Builders measure | 3096 tons | ||
Displacement | 4470 tons | ||
Guns | 11 | ||
Fate | 1912 | ||
Class | |||
Ships book | ADM 135/353 | ||
Note | 1891 guard ship. 1897 prison hulk | ||
Snippets concerning this vessels career | |||
Date | Event | ||
17 June 1868 - 4 June 1869 | Commanded (from commissioning at Plymouth) by Captain Francis Marten, flagship of Sidney Colpoys Dacres, Channel squadron (and from July 1868, flagship of Rear-Admiral Alfred Phillipps Ryder, second in command, Channel squadron) | ||
11 January 1870 - 27 December 1871 | Commanded by Captain Matthew Connolly, Coast Guard and Drill Ship of Naval Reserve, Harwich | ||
1 January 1875 - 5 January 1878 | Commanded by Captain Edward Hardinge, flagship of Vice-Admiral John Walter Tarleton, Admiral Superintendent of Naval Reservres, Harwich | ||
26 April 1878 | Commanded by Captain William Samuel Brown, Coast Guard, Harwich, flagship of Agustus Phillimore, Admiral Superintendent of Naval Reserves | ||
30 October 1879 | Commanded by Captain William Henry Whyte, flagship of the Duke of Edinburgh, Admiral-Superintendent of Coastguards | ||
1 May 1880 - 8 December 1880 | Commanded by Captain Henry Frederick Nicholson, Ship of First Reserve, Coast Guard and Drill Ship of Naval Reserve, Harwich and Flagship of Rear-Admiral the Duke of Edinburgh, Admiral Superintendent of Naval Reserves | ||
4 December 1880 - 6 June 1883 | Commanded by Captain St George Caulfield D'Arcy-Irvine, Ship of First Reserve, Coast Guard and Drill Ship of the Royal Naval Reserve, Harwich and (1882) Mediterranean, including bombardment of Alexandria![]() | ||
29 November 1883 | Commanded by Captain George Robinson | ||
Extracts from the Times newspaper | |||
Date | Extract | ||
Fr 14 February 1868 | OUR IRON-CLAD FLEET. — A return likely to be called for annually has been laid before Parliament, giving an account of our iron-clad fleet built, building, or ordered. The return, which is dated the 30th of August, 1867, contains a list of 31 ships then completed, 13 of them wholly armour-clad, and 18 partially. They are: — The Black Prince, 32 guns; Warrior, 32; Defence, 16; Resistance, 16; Achilles, 26; Hector, 18: Valiant, 18; Minotaur, 26; Agincourt, 26; Northumberland, 26; Royal Oak, 24; Prince Consort, 24; Caledonia, 24; Ocean, 24; Royal Alfred 18; Zealous, 20; Bellerophon, 15; Lord Clyde, 24; Lord Warden, 18; Penelope, 11; Pallas, 8; Favourite, 10; Research, 4; Enterprise, 4; Waterwitch, 2; Vixen, 2; Viper, 2; Royal Sovereign, 5; Prince Albert, 4; Scorpion, 4; Wivern, 4. Twenty-one of these ships are of more than 3,000 tons each. Six other ships were at the date of this return building; two to be wholly armour-clad, and four partially; the Hercules, just launched; the Monarch, 6 guns, to be launched in June; the Captain, 6, the Repulse, 12, to be launched in April; the Audacious, 14, in December; and the Invincible, 14, in March, 1869. All these six ships exceed 3,700 tons. Another, the Bellona, is ordered [and apparently later cancelled]. Lastly, there are the four wholly armour-clad batteries launched in 1855 and 1856, the Erebus, Terror, Thunderbolt, and Thunder; the three first of 16 guns, and the last 14, their tonnage ranging from 1,469 to 1,973. The first cost of the 31 iron-clad ships completed amounted in the whole to 7,284,294l. This includes fittings, but the accounts for some of the latter ships are not yet closed, and this sum does not include incidental and establishment charges. These last indirect charges, calculated in accordance with the recommendation of the Committee on Dockyard Manufactures, add about 35 per cent. to the gross direct charges for labour and materials expended upon each ship in the financial year 1864-65, about 51 per cent. for 1865-66, and the year 1866-67 is for the present estimated to show the same ratio of 51 per cent. These indirect charges have amounted, on the Bellerophon, to no less than 114,372l.; Lord Warden, 104.292l., with a further addition to follow: Royal Alfred, 69,999l., also liable to some addition; Lord Clyde, 66,964l.; Pallas, 61,076l. The most costly of the ships have been the Minotaur, 450,774l.; the Agincourt, 446,048l., both of them with unsettled claims for extra payment; the Northumberland, 433,130l., with the accounts not yet closed; the Achilles, 444,590l.; and the Hercules, estimated at 401,000l. Further sums have to be added to the cost of these ships for dockyard, incidental, and establishment charges. | ||
Sa 28 November 1868 | That portion of the Channel Squadron which left Plymouth Sound on Thursday for Lisbon, consisted of the Minotaur, Defence, Penelope, Bellerophon, and Northumberland. The Warrior shipped her powder yesterday (Friday), and will follow shortly. The Helicon and Pigeon will probably leave to-day with despatches for the Admirals. | ||
Tu 1 December 1868 | Her Majesty’s ship Helicon will sail from Devonport tomorrow morning, and will convey despatches for the Channel Squadron, consisting of the Minotaur, Bellerophon, Penelope, Northumberland, Defence, and Pallas. | ||
Th 8 April 1869 | An order has been issued from the Admiralty that all ships of war carrying twin-screw engines are to have their machinery fitted with Silver's steam governor. The largest vessel driven by twin screws in Her Majesty's navy at present in commission is the armoured iron frigate Penelope, 3,096 tons, 600-horse power, Capt. Francis Marten, now carrying in the Channel fleet the flag of the second officer in command, Rear-Admiral A.P. Ryder. The official reports from this vessel are highly favourable as regards the beneficial action of the steam governor at sea, and especially so in rough weather. | ||
Th 8 April 1869 | The Navy Estimates have now been all voted, and the moral of the whole discussion appears to be that in shipbuilding, as in every other matter, there is no such thing as finality. It seems but a few days — it is less than twenty years — since we heard of the launch of the French steamship Napoléon![]() Let no man think that, in any arguments or comments of ours which may have contributed to this result, we have been unjust to our naval architects. We know well the difficulties with which they have contended, and we rejoice to acknowledge that in several instances, and notably in Her Majesty’s ships Achilles, Minotaur, Bellerophon, and Hercules, they have attained a surprising amount of success. No one deplores more than we can do the necessity, if it be a necessity, that the most powerful class of our men-of-war should be forced to rely for motive power on steam alone. Obviously it will add largely to the cost of their maintenance in commission, and set limits to the services to which they can be applied. But, if the power of modern artillery is so far increased that the armour carried by these formidable and costly vessels will not exclude the shells which in the day of trial would certainly destroy their crews and burn or sink their hulls; if the power of the guns is still on the increase, and new metals and forms of construction may possibly add to their deadly effect, at the same time that it is impossible, without increasing the size of broadside ships beyond all reasonable proportions, to clothe them with iron-plating of sufficient defensive power, — there is but one conclusion. We must choose another type to carry the necessary armour. We must give to these warlike engines, the enormous cost of which, even in a wealthy Empire, must set some bounds to their number, defensive properties corresponding in some degree to their offensive force. We cannot trust the fortunes of England to ships which an hour's fighting may destroy, if there is a stronger type of fighting vessel, and other nations are likely to possess it. All shipbuilding is a compromise. In merchantmen speed must be sacrificed to stowage, or stowage sacrificed to speed. If time be an object, it is gained by the addition of steam power, but the weight of the engine and its fuel is so much taken away from the cargo the ship can carry. In a man-of-war the problem is more complicated, in proportion as steadiness of platform for the firing of rifled cannon, and strength of armour as a protection to the sides, become necessary elements in the construction. The form which is the best adapted for speed is that which, by its length, needs the greatest weight of armour; and if, with Mr. Reed, we deliberately choose the slower form of hull, the balance must be redressed by the employment of more powerful engines, which weigh several hundred tons more, and so detract from the weight of coal and armour which the ship can carry. Again, the carrying of armour on the side of the ship aggravates largely her rolling propensities, and this at the very time when we wish, above all things, to secure a higher measure of steadiness than sufficed in the days of Nelson. Guns of precision need a steady platform for precise firing; the same guns necessitate that armour-plating which makes the broadside ship more unsteady than before. It is in the vortex of these conflicting elements that our naval constructors have whirled around. The wonder is, not that they have done so little, but that they have succeeded in doing so much. They have attempted the impossible. A steady broadside ship of moderate dimensions, carrying powerful guns well out of water, and clad in armour which shells from similar guns will not be able to pierce, with a high rate of speed and coal enough for an ocean passage, is an impossibility; and the sooner this truth is recognized the better it will be. Mr. Childers is acting boldly and wisely in attempting the solution of a difficult problem. Can we, by a radical change in the form of hull, secure in a large degree what hitherto our ironclads have failed to attain? He would be a bold man who would predict with assured confidence the success of the experiment. But there is abundant evidence to justify the trial, and much ground for hope of its ultimate success. The only nations which have tried the experiment at all before us are the United States and Russia, and both of them believe in its feasibility. The Americans, since the conclusion of their great war, have reduced their naval expenditure to such a point that they can indulge no longer in experimental shipbuilding. With an annual outlay of 3,500,000l. sterling for the entire Naval Service, the construction of ironclads and the maintenance of foreign squadrons are together incompatible. They are leaving to European Powers the complete solution of the difficulty; but during the continuance of the war they applied themselves to it with their characteristic energy and accessibility to new ideas. They laid down at least ten distinct classes of turret-vessels with low freeboard — that is, with sides rising above the waterline not more than one or two feet — ranging in size from the Sandusky ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ||
Fr 5 April 1878 | It is stated that the Admiralty hare decided upon augmenting our fleet on the China and East Indian stations by the addition of another armour-plated vessel. The only vessels of any size on these stations are the Audacious, 14, armour-plated, flag-ship of Vice-Admiral C.F. Hillyar, C.B., Commander-in-Chief on the China station; and the Undaunted, 31, unarmoured frigate, flag-ship of Rear-Admiral J. Corbett, C.B., Commander-in-Chief in the East Indies. The other vessels — about 30 in number — are small, and do not carry any heavy armament. The Penelope, now at Chatham, and which is ready for commission, will be sent to China, and as she has been fitted as a flag-ship, it is thought that a Rear-Admiral will be appointed to her, to be second in command on the station. |
![]() |